Carlos Zambrano moves to the bullpen. Whaaaa??? Oh. Wait, what? Somewhere, Dusty Baker just tipped his “Crazy Manager Move” hat to Sweet Lou. Dusty, “After Harang complained of arm soreness, I needed him for another 140 pitches the next day, so I fashioned a pitching arm out of rubber bands and a dead giraffe. Some saw that as crazy, but this Big Z move takes the cake.” Are the Cubs building a new and improved frankencloser, Carlos Zambarmol? Close game, two men on, starter’s tiring… You want Carlos Zambrano entering the game or leaving it? That’s not even rhetorical. That’s common sense, isn’t it? As Lou ever seen Zambrano pitch? This is the guy you want coming into pressure situations? Wow, what a move. I want to say there’s no way this move lasts, but Zambrano’s also not that valuable to wait it out. Lose him in fantasy like Sweet Lou lost his mind. Anyway, here’s what else I saw yesterday in fantasy baseball:

Alfonso Soriano – 3-for-4, 3 RBIs and he hit his 2nd homer as he bats .327 on the year. He also has one more steal than Alcides Escobar. Not as glamorous as he used to be, but should get to a 25/10 year, assuming the knees he borrowed from The Mummy hold up.

Zack Greinke – 7 IP, 2 ER, 3 baserunners, 8 Ks with the no decision. The first and only trade Rudy and I did with each other was me sending him Melky Cabrera for Zack Greinke. It was in 2008, so it wasn’t as obnoxiously awesome as it might sound. Though, it was close. The Razzball Glossary term that evolved from that trade was Greinke’d, as in “Rudy got Greinke’d!” After about a year of me mocking Rudy, the term was removed from the glossary because it became archaic (and Rudy cried). Now I propose the return of Greinke’d, but with a new, alternative definition. When a pitcher throws a gem, but gets a no decision he’s been Greinke’d. Roll it around on your tongue, see how it feels.

Alex Gordon – Hit the game-winning homer yesterday. Every time I try to get out, Alex Gordon pulls me back in. Please, someone stop me from picking him up.

Placido Polanco – Left the game after getting hit by a Tim Hudson pitch on the elbow. Somewhere, Shawn Michaels’ elbow says, “Pfft.”

Roy Halladay – 9 IP, 0 ER, 6 baserunners, 7 Ks. Halladay was Rudy’s preseason NL Cy Young choice. Rudy’s right. Halladay’s pitching so well it makes me wonder how many more Wins and awards he’d have if he had pitched in the NL East for the last 7 years.

Jason Marquis – The Marquis de Shat heads to the Disgraceful List. His home away from home.

Ryan Zimmerman – Left the game with a hamstring injury similar to the one he suffered last week. A bad pattern is emerging. If he continues to have hamstring injuries on again, off again all year, it could really hurt his numbers. Probably best if he just sits out for a week. The preceding sentence was my attempt to put the correct move out in the cosmos for the Nats. We’ll see if The Secret works.

Nick Hundley – Hit his 2nd homer as he bats .265. He’s my Fantasy Razzball catcher, that is supposed to give me the worst stats, and he’s actually out hitting most of my real teams’ catchers. I should be fingercuffing him. Yeah, that sounds wrong.

Francisco Liriano – 8 IP, 0 ER, 8 baserunners, 6 Ks. In the Yahoo Friends and Family League (I think I’m in the former group, but I haven’t seen one of my uncles in about 12 years. Unkie Funston? Could be.), Rudy and I traded Jenks for Maybin and Francisco Liriano. You can’t make this stuff up. No, really, you can’t. The league is public. You’d know if I were lying.

Grady Sizemore – 0-for-4 as he bats .191. After seeing his sexting photo, I didn’t think Sizemore could do anything more degradying this year. He might be proving me wrong.

Sean Rodriguez – 3-for-5, 4 RBIs and his first homer. You know that guy you drop that immediately starts hitting? Could be Sean-Rod. Lord knows Zobrist isn’t hitting anything.

Wade Davis – 6 IP, 0 ER, 5 baserunners, 6 Ks. Let’s jump in the hot tub time machine and see what I said in the starter rankings, “The nice thing about Davis is he may actually give you close to a complete season (200 innings). The bad is his walks haven’t been great.” And that’s me quoting me! So far, he’s been pretty on point. 17 innings, 13 Ks, 11 BBs and a 2.65 ERA. There could be some ugliness down the road, but he definitely has the talent to keep his ERA around 3.50.

@ Anyone: In a H2H league that counts both Saves and Holds, is it safe to bench Neftali Feliz tonight in favor of Fernando Rodney? I know who the better pitcher is these days, obviously, so I guess I’m really just asking if anyone thinks Feliz has much of a chance of being brought in tonight after pitching 2 innings last night.

When I first heard that Lou was moving Zambrano to the ‘pen, I thought it was a joke. Seriously, I didn’t believe it. And then when I believed it, I still couldn’t believe it. But then when I thought about it, it actually started to make sense. First off, the Cubs bullpen has been atrocious. I think they broke camp with 3 rookies, and they weren’t exactly the Nasty Boys. By now, Lou is absolutely desperate to get any kind bullpen help possible. Also, Big Z hasn’t really been an “ace” in years. From 2003 to 2006 he put up ace-like numbers, but he hasn’t been there since. I remember Lou said a while back (paraphrasing), Every year in spring training I think Zambrano is going to win 20 games, but for some reason it hasn’t happened.

At the end of the day, I’m with Lou on this one. Yeah, it’s sad that the Cubs have reached this state, but at this point Lou can’t change the direction of the wind, he can only adjust the sails.

RE Grady, notice he’s actually had a lot of ABs vs LHP in the early going (28) vs just 24 vs RHP. Batting 0.045. He’s a .230 lifetime hitter vs LHP. In daily leagues I bench him vs LHP, since he hits poorly but it’s also much less likely he steals off a lefty pickoff move. He’s a tougher play in weekly leagues, but be sure he’ll end up playing against a lot more RHP than LHP so he should be fine.

@Howard: i’m not. i think santana is fine, i just think you are tempting fate. i’m saving those innings for a matchup with the mariners or A’s instead of risking them on the yankees, even away from yankee stadium.

@Anybody: Furcal is still a FA (8 team league). I have the hard-hitting Beckham riding the pine right now, and a half-struggling Bartlett at SS. Drop Becks for Furcal? Grey said “no-dice” yesterday, but I want to know your thoughts after his explosion last night (be it v. the Red Spankings).

I woke up hungover, hoping yesterday was a bad dream. All of a sudden my behemoth of a team has more holes than the Marlin defense. I’m still in Z-enial (glossary term? “when one of your fantasy starters is unexpectedly moved to the ‘pen.” too specific?)

I so want to dump Z. Than I look at the waiver wire and I see the names Bush, Richards, Fister and Livan and puke in my mouth, thinking that I wasted a 10th round pick. It’s a keeper league, so it’s more like a 14th rounder but that’s little consolation when I watched Phil Hughes (16 or 17th round) pitch last night.

I’ve doubled down on Sizemore in both of my big money leagues, hoping that he would return to a Top-10 OF, but Cleveland is unbearably awful. Why would you ever pitch to Grady with Hafner, LaPorta, Kearns, and Peralta behind him. Arguably, not a single one of those players should even be on a major league roster.

It’s early, but Sizemore is really giving me agita. I’m not going to sit him in weekly leagues, but I’m going to park him on the bench in daily leagues until he and the Tribe show some signs of life.

@Tony: I have a team sporting Johan, Kershaw, Hamels, Bills, Ervin Santana….Needless to say, I need Johan to step it up tonight!
@Rabbit: I’d take it, Lester could turn it around easily.
@Wilsonian: My advice is to get a deeper league…

Is there a Razzball term for consecutive Sonofabenches with the same guy. Lindstrom has had, what, 4 saves in 4 nights. I’ve gotten none of them because I’ve had Dotel, Marmol and Soriano in my RP spots. SumofSonovabench? Nah, that’s terrible…I’ll work on it.

is there a term out there for owners advertising that they want to trade a underperforming high end pick (i.e. sizemore, lester), then scoffing at your offers when you offer them anyone who wasn’t drafted in the top 5 or 6 rounds AND is off to a decent start? people need to understand that you can’t go off trading a guy for full value when he’s got an era over 8.00 or a batting avg under .220, i don’t care how early it is. i mean, is slowey + maybin for lester really so bad right now that it’s worth sending out a league wide email talking about ridiculous trade offers? if you want to trade lester you can’t expect someone to come in offering you wainwright for him.

Cradle Robber – the owner in your league who loves prospects. He drafted Jason Heyward in the 8th round and drafted Jaime Garcia in the 10th. He also used his #1 waiver priority on Ike Davis… in a 10 team league.

Cougar Lover – opposite of a cradle robber. He rosters all players with 10+ years of MLB experience.

@Bring Back Pluto: Rodney is probably the right decision. Feliz went two innings last night and the Rangers go directly from Boston to Detroit to start a new series tomorrow. If he had a day off coming, I’d say Washington might use him tonight, but with three more games looming this weekend, he’ll likely be unavailable. Then again, Ron-Ron might have scored an 8ball last night and thinks everyone will be up for three days straight like him.

No mention of Prince and his “sore” hand? He and Sizemore are killing me – 100 at bats, 0 HR, 1 SB, terrible AVG. Three of my 4 closers went down in the first week (Frasor, Gonzalez, Francisco) and it’s looking like a lost season for me. You don’t want to do anything rash after 15 games, but Sizemore looks worse this year than he did last year – it is only a matter of time before they tell us he’s hurt.

Can someone explain to me why all 7 runs that Beckett allowed were earned? In the 7th inning, Borbon reached on a Youkilis throwing error and later scored on Hamilton’s HR. Shouldn’t the run that Borbon scored be unearned?

@JaHerer22: shit, i think it’ll depend on how your keepers are structured. can you keep your best 3 players/keepers without worrying about draft round or cost? if so then i could see keeping heyward even if he isn’t one of your top 3 producers statistically this season. he’s K’ing but he’s walking too, his avg is solid, he’s among the league leaders RBIs. not saying i’d go all crazy and offer a proven stud for him, but if i have him and can keep him indefinitely, i think i’m standing pat for now. i see no reason why he couldn’t have a similar season to j-up’s 2009 at this point.

@ThePoonTycoon: Yeah, annoyingly our commissioner hasn’t decided yet how the keepers are going to work or what it will cost–only that there will be 3–so that makes deals like this a little harder. I have Tex, Wright, Tulo, and Ellsbury so yeah I don’t know how that would all work.

@JaHerer22: i’d wanna find out how he’s gonna do keepers and how long you can keep a guy before you start trading. for instance, if you can keep heyward with a 12th round pick, i might hold off on trading him for upton who you’d be keeping with a 2nd round pick, or at least not include lee in the deal.

Well I’m barely winning steals as is. I actually lost that category last week when my brother got 3 steals on Sunday to beat me 8-7. I also play in a fickle league where every owner wants a “no brainer” trade, so basically I’d have to overpay for a player.

@Grey – for example… the guy who owns Gordon Beckham needs a lot of help with pitching… he’s full of SP4s and SP5s, but refuses to trade him for my Wandy Rodriguez. He wants my Cole Hamels… so I called his Gordon Beckham and raised him a Casey McGehee.

Grey : Keeper league here. Should I drop Adam Jones for someone playing hot or just ride out the shitstorm he is creating? He is on my bench but could use someone to fill in for Asdrubal as he is sucking ass right now too.

Grey, what would be a good team stat to use when evaluating starting a an opposing pitcher. I’ve been browsing the Fangraphs page for a few days trying to find a good indicator. Right now, I’m leaning toward using wOBA. The top 5 teams currently are Dodgers, Yanks, Phils, Brewers, and Twins. All of those teams seems like good teams to avoid (although the Dodgers currently have a BABIP of .350!!!!! insane). The Rays seem like a team to avoid as well, but they’re only middle of the pack in wOBA. What are your thoughts?

Anyone else catch the little addition Yahoo did to each player’s sticky noteS? They put in their matchup ratings on top of their latest blurb. I never pay attention to that stuff though. Just as long as they don’t decide to say they’re charging for it

@Grey: Oh All Powerful Omnicient One (that’s you, Grey), I need to drop someone in my keeper league to make room for activating Aaron Hill. I’m carrying more 1B than I need. Would you drop Big Crapi Papi (whose contract runs up at the end of the season), Paul Konerko or Ike Davis (I’ve also got Dunn and Youkilis who qualify at 1B and Headley to use as my 3B or CI)?

I’m thinking of starting Headley tomorrow over either Lind or Quentin. Lind is only in question because he faces Matt Garza tomorrow. And Quentin, well, simply because it’s clear he forgot how to play baseball recently.

@Martin:
Ha sounds good, but Cappsized kind of implies (to me at least) you’re done for and went down under. So perhaps a blown save?

How about: Cappsized-“When a closer comes in and makes the bases heavy by walking or allowing hits to multiple hitters eventually resulting in a blown save and taking your fantasy pitching stats down under.”

Although I know Capps has (thankfully) yet to blow up consecutive saves unlike Qualls, so it kind of doesn’t make sense for him per se.

Fuentes is stupid. I watched him try to overpower Miggy with his 90 mph straight fastball. Cabrera fouled it off a few times then absolutely destroyed one. A line drive that may have left a divot in the grass at Angels Stadium.

I just traded for Zimmerman on a counter offer from a guy who wanted Ian Stewart for him. I thought I’d really taken him in that trade…..now I’m not so sure.

@Grey: I thought your comment about Alfonso Soriano’s knees was saying that he was borrowing his mother’s knees. After calling my mother my mum, a mummy’s knee would, well, you know, be his mother’s knees. Alright. that was much more lame than I had anticipated.

Man, taking Miggy with the 12th pick of the draft (followed by Wright) is starting to feel like the steal of the first round for me, no joke. I know it’s kind of a moot point because Miggy doesn’t need to “break out”, but people tend to forget it’s his 27 year old season! Call me crazy, but I think he can possibly reach 40 homers.

I really think I need to make a trade especially for pitching. Who should I look to trade? This is an auction league w/ keepers that i won last year but there are more people in the league this year so the waiver wire is a little more scarce which is why i’m looking to make a trade. thanks.

@ Anyone. Anyone have an opinion on what they have seen from Sheets so far. I know that Grey says he wouldn’t own him. His era is misleading due to his high whip and low strikeouts. I watched his start against the Yankees last night and even though his stats were good I don’t think he pitched particularly well. He definitely doesn’t look like he will be the dominant starter he once was but could get better as shakes off the rust. Basically I want to know if it would be foolish to just drop him for nothing. I’ve tried to trade him but have had no takers. I’m intrigued by the upside of Jaime Garcia especially since he is facing the Giants tomorrow.

@Eddy: ha you know it….. prince daddy with a bombski? nice, maybe my RCL can pull outta last in RBI’s and HR’s if he’d start hitting, oh and Rollins gets off the DL, oh and if ibanez hits, and and and and and……

Halladay, Liriano, Neftali, Slowey, Marcum, Gregerson (Holds), and Penny are making me look like a pitching genius. Only thing I’m missing are Saves, which I punted (I had Neftali for Holds, keeping him for 102mph fastballs).

I know Sheets gets no love round these parts, but would you rather have him or Colby Lewis, Ian Kennedy, Jaime Garcia, Bud Norris, or Fister? Our league counts K/BB, so I think I know why his owner parted ways.

@Grey: Just want to be sure, because after I posted the comment, I realized it was vague. I have all of those pitchers and Sheets is on the WW. I’m wondering if I should drop any of them for Sheets. Are you saying that I should drop Jaime for Sheets?

Those waiting on Carlos Santana probably should pay attention to this:

Cleveland Indians C Carlos Santana (knee) had to be carted off the field with Triple-A Columbus Wednesday, April 21, after he fouled a ball off of his left knee, according to The Associated Press. He is listed as day-to-day with a bruised left knee.

Ah, see now why Alcides has not steals. Batting 8th with less than 2 out, they “attempt” to bunt him over. Today, Wolf fouls 2, then hits into force that takes him off the bases. Need Gomez to tank and trade places in the lineup! (Apologies to Gomez owners. :-) )

@charlie batch: ugh, i probably wouldn’t have done that. bj is looking much better this year and has a ceiling just as high if not higher than grady and plays in a better lineup for RBIs and Rs opportunities.

My SPs are Felix/Kershaw/Nolasco/Slowey/Liriano/Penny. I’ll eventually trade someone, though what I really need more than V-Mart is a 3Bman. I cast Adrian Beltre and his punchlessness to the wind yesterday and slid MMD over to 3B. Can’t stand Beltre. Never could.

@Baron Von Vulturewins: Yeah, I edited it. Seemed to confuse my sinces and seems. Your team looks fine on pitching. I wonder if you can get an ice cold Zimmerman for Liriano or Slowey. Probably not, but worth a try maybe.

@Baron Von Vulturewins: Not trying to confuse, just being dense. :-)
One thing I look at is the value of a player relative to the rest of the players at that position. At the catcher position, in the drafts I was in, V-Mart required a top-three round pick to acquire (too rich for me but I took a different approach to my drafts this year) and is and has been (we’ll overlook ’08) a top two or three catcher for a few years. I like Slowey and Nolasco a lot, Kershaw not so much at this stage of his development, but I don’t see any one of them as equal value for Martinez. Granted, it wouldn’t take a lot more; I certainly don’t think V-Mart is worth Lincecum or Halladay but someone on the order of Ubaldo or Beckett or one of the guys you offered and a decent throw-in. Again relative value also depends on league size and rules as well.
One nice thing about America is that people have the right to deride and point fingers at me and my philosophies all they like…that is the consequence of putting my opinion out there. Fire away.

Braun hit another homer too. I “lucked” into getting A-Rod with the 5th pick in one league, and had to “settle” for Braun with the 5th pick in another. I hope they both work out, but boy is Braun delicious right now.